When Congress created Labor Day in the late 1800s, it was to placate an increasingly hostile labor movement. At a time when American workers needed protection from heavy-handed industrial bosses, labor unions made sense.
But with the growing effort by Big Labor to unionize public employees, it’s left its mission of worker protection from dangerous conditions and now has increasingly become a leech on the taxpayers. Public employees hardly need protection from their employer, the government.
If there’s any segment of society that needs protection from the government it’s taxpayers, not their employees.
Big Labor’s legacy today is that of creating pension systems that are continuing to plunge deeper into the red. Some reports indicate the collective debt, just of school employee pensions, is around $1 trillion.
Public employee unions have also created scenarios where the health benefits of their members now cost school districts nearly $24,000 in places like Milwaukee.
And they’ve instituted schemes where teachers receive raises for not dying over the summer. With negotiated “step raises,” increases are based on years of service, not value added to the “company.”
Big Labor is bankrupting government – and we should continue honoring that?
Perhaps even worse, today’s labor leaders are downright hostile to America’s exceptionalism and worse yet, embrace socialist ideals.
AFL-CIO president Rich Trumka is calling for a global financial tax – driving us down the path of one world government.
Former SEIU heavy Andy Stern was fond of invoking Karl Marx’ calling for “workers of the world” to “unite.”
These are not out fathers’ and grandfathers’ labor unions and they do not deserve our admiration.
“Labor Day” ought to be abolished and replaced with a celebration of the American Worker – not just those that are funding the likes of Rich Trumka, Randi Weingarten and Andy Stern, but everyone that is gainfully employed and contributing to society.
The reality is, unionized workers are no longer the ones driving America’s prosperity. Big Labor’s share of the American workforce is the lowest its ever been. And its push to increase government employees – and thus its dues-paying ranks – is only making the problem worse.
Non-unionized small businesses and other segments of society are what stimulate America’s economy – not organized labor.
We should stop honoring a system that is jeopardizing America’s future and begin to embrace what will revive America’s fortunes again: all American workers.
But don’t expect that any time soon. Consider what President Obama said recently:
“We’ve reversed the executive orders of the last administration that were designed to undermine organized labor. And we are going to keep on fighting to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. I don’t give up. I don’t quit. The AFL-CIO does not give up. It does not quit. That is a commitment that I am making to you. Thank you for the commitment that you’ve made to me.”